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- Мари Корелли
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The Tribulation of Satan
Do
you
know
what
it
is
to
be
poor
?
Not
poor
with
the
arrogant
poverty
complained
of
by
certain
people
who
have
five
or
six
thousand
a
year
to
live
upon
,
and
who
yet
swear
they
can
hardly
manage
to
make
both
ends
meet
,
but
really
poor
--
downright
,
cruelly
,
hideously
poor
,
with
a
poverty
that
is
graceless
,
sordid
and
miserable
?
Poverty
that
compels
you
to
dress
in
your
one
suit
of
clothes
till
it
is
worn
threadbare
--
that
denies
you
clean
linen
on
account
of
the
ruinous
charges
of
washerwomen
--
that
robs
you
of
your
own
self-respect
,
and
causes
you
to
slink
along
the
streets
vaguely
abashed
,
instead
of
walking
erect
among
your
fellow-men
in
independent
ease
--
this
is
the
sort
of
poverty
I
mean
.
This
is
the
grinding
curse
that
keeps
down
noble
aspiration
under
a
load
of
ignoble
care
;
this
is
the
moral
cancer
that
eats
into
the
heart
of
an
otherwise
well-intentioned
human
creature
and
makes
him
envious
and
malignant
,
and
inclined
to
the
use
of
dynamite
.
When
he
sees
the
fat
idle
woman
of
society
passing
by
in
her
luxurious
carriage
,
lolling
back
lazily
,
her
face
mottled
with
the
purple
and
red
signs
of
superfluous
eating
--
when
he
observes
the
brainless
and
sensual
man
of
fashion
smoking
and
dawdling
away
the
hours
in
the
Park
,
as
if
all
the
world
and
its
millions
of
honest
hard
workers
were
created
solely
for
the
casual
diversion
of
the
so-called
'
upper
'
classes
--
then
the
good
blood
in
him
turns
to
gall
,
and
his
suffering
spirit
rises
in
fierce
rebellion
,
crying
out
--
"
Why
in
God
's
name
,
should
this
injustice
be
?
Why
should
a
worthless
lounger
have
his
pockets
full
of
gold
by
mere
chance
and
heritage
,
while
I
,
toiling
wearily
from
morn
till
midnight
,
can
scarce
afford
myself
a
satisfying
meal
?
"
Why
indeed
!
Why
should
the
wicked
flourish
like
a
green
bay-tree
?
I
have
often
thought
about
it
.
Now
however
I
believe
I
could
help
to
solve
the
problem
out
of
my
own
personal
experience
.
But
...
such
an
experience
!
Who
will
credit
it
?
Who
will
believe
that
anything
so
strange
and
terrific
ever
chanced
to
the
lot
of
a
mortal
man
?
No
one
.
Yet
it
is
true
;
--
truer
than
much
so-called
truth
.
Moreover
I
know
that
many
men
are
living
through
many
such
incidents
as
have
occurred
to
me
,
under
precisely
the
same
influence
,
conscious
perhaps
at
times
,
that
they
are
in
the
tangles
of
sin
,
but
too
weak
of
will
to
break
the
net
in
which
they
have
become
voluntarily
imprisoned
.
Will
they
be
taught
,
I
wonder
,
the
lesson
I
have
learned
?
In
the
same
bitter
school
,
under
the
same
formidable
taskmaster
?
Will
they
realize
as
I
have
been
forced
to
do
--
aye
,
to
the
very
fibres
of
my
intellectual
perception
--
the
vast
,
individual
,
active
Mind
,
which
behind
all
matter
,
works
unceasingly
,
though
silently
,
a
very
eternal
and
positive
God
?
If
so
,
then
dark
problems
will
become
clear
to
them
,
and
what
seems
injustice
in
the
world
will
prove
pure
equity
!
But
I
do
not
write
with
any
hope
of
either
persuading
or
enlightening
my
fellow-men
.
I
know
their
obstinacy
too
well
;
--
I
can
gauge
it
by
my
own
.
My
proud
belief
in
myself
was
,
at
one
time
,
not
to
be
outdone
by
any
human
unit
on
the
face
of
the
globe
.
And
I
am
aware
that
others
are
in
similar
case
.
I
merely
intend
to
relate
the
various
incidents
of
my
career
in
due
order
exactly
as
they
happened
--
leaving
to
more
confident
heads
the
business
of
propounding
and
answering
the
riddles
of
human
existence
as
best
they
may
.
During
a
certain
bitter
winter
,
long
remembered
for
its
arctic
severity
,
when
a
great
wave
of
intense
cold
spread
freezing
influences
not
alone
over
the
happy
isles
of
Britain
,
but
throughout
all
Europe
,
I
,
Geoffrey
Tempest
,
was
alone
in
London
and
well-nigh
starving
.
Now
a
starving
man
seldom
gets
the
sympathy
he
merits
--
so
few
can
be
persuaded
to
believe
in
him
.
Worthy
folks
who
have
just
fed
to
repletion
are
the
most
incredulous
,
some
of
them
being
even
moved
to
smile
when
told
of
existing
hungry
people
,
much
as
if
these
were
occasional
jests
invented
for
after-dinner
amusement
.
Or
,
with
that
irritating
vagueness
of
attention
which
characterizes
fashionable
folk
to
such
an
extent
that
when
asking
a
question
they
neither
wait
for
the
answer
nor
understand
it
when
given
,
the
well-dined
groups
,
hearing
of
some
one
starved
to
death
,
will
idly
murmur
'
How
dreadful
!
'
and
at
once
turn
to
the
discussion
of
the
latest
'
fad
'
for
killing
time
,
ere
it
takes
to
killing
them
with
sheer
ennui
.
The
pronounced
fact
of
being
hungry
sounds
coarse
and
common
,
and
is
not
a
topic
for
polite
society
,
which
always
eats
more
than
sufficient
for
its
needs
.
At
the
period
I
am
speaking
of
however
,
I
,
who
have
since
been
one
of
the
most
envied
of
men
,
knew
the
cruel
meaning
of
the
word
hunger
,
too
well
--
the
gnawing
pain
,
the
sick
faintness
,
the
deadly
stupor
,
the
insatiable
animal
craving
for
mere
food
,
all
of
which
sensations
are
frightful
enough
to
those
who
are
,
unhappily
,
daily
inured
to
them
,
but
which
when
they
afflict
one
who
has
been
tenderly
reared
and
brought
up
to
consider
himself
a
'
gentleman
,
'
--
God
save
the
mark
!
are
perhaps
still
more
painful
to
bear
.
And
I
felt
that
I
had
not
deserved
to
suffer
the
wretchedness
in
which
I
found
myself
.
I
had
worked
hard
.
From
the
time
my
father
died
,
leaving
me
to
discover
that
every
penny
of
the
fortune
I
imagined
he
possessed
was
due
to
swarming
creditors
,
and
that
nothing
of
all
our
house
and
estate
was
left
to
me
except
a
jewelled
miniature
of
my
mother
who
had
lost
her
own
life
in
giving
me
birth
--
from
that
time
I
say
,
I
had
put
my
shoulder
to
the
wheel
and
toiled
late
and
early
.
I
had
turned
my
University
education
to
the
only
use
for
which
it
or
I
seemed
fitted
--
literature
.
I
had
sought
for
employment
on
almost
every
journal
in
London
--
refused
by
many
,
taken
on
trial
by
some
,
but
getting
steady
pay
from
none
.
Whoever
seeks
to
live
by
brain
and
pen
alone
is
,
at
the
beginning
of
such
a
career
,
treated
as
a
sort
of
social
pariah
.
Nobody
wants
him
--
everybody
despises
him
.
His
efforts
are
derided
,
his
manuscripts
are
flung
back
to
him
unread
,
and
he
is
less
cared
for
than
the
condemned
murderer
in
gaol
.
The
murderer
is
at
least
fed
and
clothed
--
a
worthy
clergyman
visits
him
,
and
his
gaoler
will
occasionally
condescend
to
play
cards
with
him
.
But
a
man
gifted
with
original
thoughts
and
the
power
of
expressing
them
,
appears
to
be
regarded
by
everyone
in
authority
as
much
worse
than
the
worst
criminal
,
and
all
the
'
jacks-in-office
'
unite
to
kick
him
to
death
if
they
can
.
I
took
both
kicks
and
blows
in
sullen
silence
and
lived
on
--
not
for
the
love
of
life
,
but
simply
because
I
scorned
the
cowardice
of
self-destruction
.
I
was
young
enough
not
to
part
with
hope
too
easily
;
--
the
vague
idea
I
had
that
my
turn
would
come
--
that
the
ever-circling
wheel
of
Fortune
would
perchance
lift
me
up
some
day
as
it
now
crushed
me
down
,
kept
me
just
wearily
capable
of
continuing
existence
--
though
it
was
merely
a
continuance
and
no
more
.
For
about
six
months
I
got
some
reviewing
work
on
a
well-known
literary
journal
.
Thirty
novels
a
week
were
sent
to
me
to
'
criticise
,
'
--
I
made
a
habit
of
glancing
hastily
at
about
eight
or
ten
of
them
,
and
writing
one
column
of
rattling
abuse
concerning
these
thus
casually
selected
--
the
remainder
were
never
noticed
at
all
.
I
found
that
this
mode
of
action
was
considered
'
smart
,
'
and
I
managed
for
a
time
to
please
my
editor
who
paid
me
the
munificent
sum
of
fifteen
shillings
for
my
weekly
labour
.
But
on
one
fatal
occasion
I
happened
to
change
my
tactics
and
warmly
praised
a
work
which
my
own
conscience
told
me
was
both
original
and
excellent
.
The
author
of
it
happened
to
be
an
old
enemy
of
the
proprietor
of
the
journal
on
which
I
was
employed
;
--
my
eulogistic
review
of
the
hated
individual
,
unfortunately
for
me
,
appeared
,
with
the
result
that
private
spite
outweighed
public
justice
,
and
I
was
immediately
dismissed
.
After
this
I
dragged
on
in
a
sufficiently
miserable
way
,
doing
'
hack
work
'
for
the
dailies
,
and
living
on
promises
that
never
became
realities
,
till
,
as
I
have
said
,
in
the
early
January
of
the
bitter
winter
alluded
to
,
I
found
myself
literally
penniless
and
face
to
face
with
starvation
,
owing
a
month
's
rent
besides
for
the
poor
lodging
I
occupied
in
a
back
street
not
far
from
the
British
Museum
.
I
had
been
out
all
day
trudging
from
one
newspaper
office
to
another
,
seeking
for
work
and
finding
none
.
Every
available
post
was
filled
.
I
had
also
tried
,
unsuccessfully
,
to
dispose
of
a
manuscript
of
my
own
--
a
work
of
fiction
which
I
knew
had
some
merit
,
but
which
all
the
'
readers
'
in
the
publishing
offices
appeared
to
find
exceptionally
worthless
.
These
'
readers
'
I
learned
,
were
most
of
them
novelists
themselves
,
who
read
other
people
's
productions
in
their
spare
moments
and
passed
judgment
on
them
.
I
have
always
failed
to
see
the
justice
of
this
arrangement
;
to
me
it
seems
merely
the
way
to
foster
mediocrities
and
suppress
originality
.
Common
sense
points
out
the
fact
that
the
novelist
'
reader
'
who
has
a
place
to
maintain
for
himself
in
literature
would
naturally
rather
encourage
work
that
is
likely
to
prove
ephemeral
,
than
that
which
might
possibly
take
a
higher
footing
than
his
own
.
Be
this
as
it
may
,
and
however
good
or
bad
the
system
,
it
was
entirely
prejudicial
to
me
and
my
literary
offspring
.
The
last
publisher
I
tried
was
a
kindly
man
who
looked
at
my
shabby
clothes
and
gaunt
face
with
some
commiseration
.
